


Too much is never enough

by jestbee



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Comedy Club, Coming Out, Fluff, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Stand up comic!Chris, Strangers to Lovers, a single scene of a homophobic heckler, comedy club bartender!PJ
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:21:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22655410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jestbee/pseuds/jestbee
Summary: It starts the night a comic in a blue suit stands on stage and announces to the audience that he's bisexual.
Relationships: Chris Kendall/PJ Liguori
Comments: 9
Kudos: 70





	Too much is never enough

**Author's Note:**

> Based heavily on Bicycle the Sammy Paul short film that Chris starred in. 
> 
> Title is from a song by the same name by Florence and the Machine.

It starts the night a comic in a blue suit stands on stage and announces to the audience that he's bisexual.

PJ has worked at the _The Jazz Spot_ since his friend Mike bought it and converted it from a music venue to a comedy club five years ago. He didn't change the name, but it hadn't seemed to matter. 

Mike hired him because he needed a good bar manager. PJ had jumped at the chance to run things his own way and for the most part, Mike leaves him to it. For PJ, that means working most nights because he has issues with trusting those he delegates to, and he has hired only one other person in the entire time he's worked there. 

Dean is both his Head Barman and his roommate, and other than him occasionally telling Mike when PJ leaves passive-aggressive notes about the dishes, it's been working out fine. He doesn't give PJ shit for the way he wants everything just-so, and in return PJ tries to be a better boss than he is a roommate.

So PJ has seen a fair amount of comics come through this place, and even some other queer ones who talked about that in their act, but there is something about how this one opens on it, something about the way he frames jokes around that one singular fact and makes it sound like the most interesting thing, without accepting any criticism.

Not that there is any. 

Maybe it's because other comedians talk about being gay like they're trying to convince you they are like all those stereotypes, like they're just as inoffensive and non threatening as everyone would want them to be; there have been no end of lesbians joking about bringing a moving van to a second date, or gay men talking about weird things they get sent on Grindr. Safe, well-trodden material, because gay and straight are easy to grasp when they're framed the way people expect.

But this is the first person that stood up there and said something PJ could feel right down in his soul, who told the story of how they came to terms with not being on any one side of that dichotomy, without apologising or boiling themselves down to a caricature.

"I'm six foot two and I'm bisexual," he says, "those are my two defining features, by and large."

The audience had groaned, the routine moved on, and PJ felt something bloom in his chest that felt different from anything that had been there before. 

-

Dean says it's unprofessional to thirst over the talent. PJ tries to tell him no end of times that he isn't 'thirsting', just appreciating a good routine, but every time Chris - as PJ now knows him to be called - takes the stage, PJ feels his heart beat just that little bit faster. 

Chris does a late spot when the audience is settled, a few drinks in and open to laughing even if it isn't material they're used to. Chris delivers it slightly different every time, and PJ has heard it often enough that he notices the minor tweaks Chris makes, measuring the response, refining his act. PJ can even tell when it's better, when it isn't, smiles to himself when he notices Chris has gone back to a previous version. 

Still, it's always the same. 

"I'm bisexual."

PJ holds his breath every time. 

And the rest of his routine is just as revolutionary, at least to PJ. Chris talks about discovering his bisexuality by finding himself attracted to both Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield in Spiderman 2, and as hilarious as that is, as much as it makes PJ laugh, he also feels like he's been punched in the gut.

He remembers looking at actors growing up and thinking for so long that he wanted to be just like them. 

Until later, much later, he'd realise he didn't want to _be_ them, he wanted to be _with_ them.

So Chris, unknowingly, is speaking directly to PJ's experiences, and PJ can't help but feel that like something visceral, a pull towards Chris specifically as someone who might understand.

But it isn't even just that. Chris is alluring in other ways, like the fit of his suit or the soft swoop of his fringe in his forehead. His movements are animated but precise, like he knows where his limbs are at all times and each gesture is intentional. 

PJ rarely feels in control of every limb at once. He's much more likely to be the master of his arms while his feet trip over empty air, or walking normally while his hands make movements he doesn't quite intend. 

So Chris is somewhat of a dream. PJ doesn't want to _be_ him though. But perhaps, he wants to be _with_ him.

So yeah, maybe PJ is thirsting after the talent.

-

PJ cleans down the bar every night. When the house lights come up, and the damage of the night is revealed, he stays under the orange glow of the bar and works his way through the closing checklist. 

Dean helps, if collecting empty glasses from tables and stacking them in the dishwasher while ranting about Star Wars counts as helping. But mostly, the bar is PJ's domain, and he likes the process of putting it back into order, setting it back to default, ready for the next night.

It's usually just the two of them. By this time Mike is in his office, cashing out the till even though that's the first thing PJ does, the first thing on his list; Get the cash off the floor. But Mike likes to check it, and PJ doesn't take that as a blow to his pride, he just lets him get on with it.

Tonight though, they aren't alone. Dean looks up from his position on the other side of the bar twenty minutes after the customers have cleared out, and tells PJ so. His hands are full of empty glasses and he's midway through a rant about the prequels, but he stops because the door leading backstage opens and Chris comes out. 

"Look out," Dean says. 

PJ shushes him automatically, because Chris doesn't need to hear how PJ needs a warning just because he's on the other side of a room.

He does, though.

"You alright?" Dean calls to Chris, calm as anything. Like Chris is just a person you can talk to. 

Chris nods, "yeah just hanging about, that cool?" 

"Fine by me," Dean says.

He walks around the bar with with glasses and stacks them in the final row of the dishwasher, pressing the button to turn it on.

"I'm off," he tells PJ.

"No," PJ says, ashamed of how pleading his voice sounds, how utterly pathetic. "He's coming over here, you can't just—"

"Bye Peej," Dean says, leaving the bar with a malicious laugh, "have fun."

PJ lets him go not because he wants to, but because the power of speech has failed him entirely. Out of the corner of his eye, PJ sees Chris come to stand on the other side of the counter.

"Tell me" Chris says, thumping his hand down on the top of the bar, disrupting PJ's shocked silence, "Am I brave for doing that, or stupid?" 

Chris waits for an answer while PJ gathers himself. He really is a mess, Dean is absolutely going to pay for this.

"The routine," Chris clarifies, "saying all that stuff about… me."

"Brave, I'd say." PJ manages, "I mean, it's not like anyone in here is particularly… we don't attract the kind of people you really need to worry about."

Chris' fingers drum on the edge of the bar in a random, staccato rhythm. PJ is thankful he's already wiped it down, that comes earlier in his list than the stand-still-and-panic-over-hot-comics bit. 

Chris sighs, faintly, and his hands still.

"But you wouldn't have done it?" 

PJ shakes his head, then nods. Truth is, he isn't sure whether he could do what Chris does, not only because he isn't funny, he doesn't have the presence and comic timing Chris does, but just… he doesn't know if being that open in front of a crowd of strangers is something he could ever imagine doing.

"What makes you think I'd have anything worth telling?" 

"I dunno. Something tells me you would."

PJ moves his lips around silent half-formed words, and doesn't let any of them voice before Chris is climbing onto a stool, face resigned.

"Can I have a drink?" He asks, "or is it too late?" 

PJ looks over at the cashed up till and shrugs. "It's fine."

"Great. Just a coke?"

"You don't want anything stronger?"

Chris considers him for a moment, fingers drumming again. "Not tonight."

-

Chris at his bar as the place winds down becomes a regular thing. Dean leaves early on the nights Chris performs with a devilish look in his eyes like he's doing PJ a favour. PJ isn't entirely sure whether he is, or not.

"I'd love to know what the end of the story is," PJ says one night, miraculously brave.

Chris had ordered whiskey tonight. He'd done the same routine as before, the brave one, and the reception had been the same, so PJ doesn't know what about tonight warranted the dark look in Chris' eyes, the soft sigh over the rim of his glass.

He doesn't expect Chris to respond, because sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes he sits on the end of the bar, quiet and thoughtful, and PJ lets him be.

Tonight, it seems, he's feeling chatty.

"The end?" 

"Well that's not it, surely" PJ says. Chris cocks his head in question but PJ presses on. He wants that sad look off Chris' face one way or another. "Spiderman two then zilch. What about now? Anyone caught in your… web?" 

PJ immediately hates himself. He needs to leave the joking to the experts because that was truly embarrassing. Especially given the way Chris' face twists into silent yet forgiving mocking, just for a moment.

It's just that he wants to know if it worked out for Chris, if his start ends better than PJ's does. A few fumbles with both boys and girls when he was young, one short term relationship with a guy who didn't really want to be in it but found himself there anyway, only to break PJ's heart, and then a long term thing with his ex girlfriend that also fell apart. 

It has to end better than this right? Better than alone in your twenties with a job working every night instead of a social life.

"Me?" Chris says, letting PJ off the hook without mentioning how lame he is for attempting that joke. He hides what's left of his expression by swirling the drink in the bottom of his glass, but PJ still sees it. The edges of his profile glow a ruddy amber under the lights from the bar. "I'm self partnered." 

He says it with his usual lilt, a sharp curve of his mouth, the minute raise of his brows PJ is so used to seeing in his performance. 

"You know," PJ replies, busying himself with stacking empty glasses onto narrow shelves. "I never know when you're joking." 

He keeps it up for only two or three glasses and then pauses what he's doing, the tinkling of glass on glass stopping for a moment. When he looks up Chris is looking at him, unblinking. PJ wants to disappear out from under the heat of it, but finds that he can't.

"I almost always am," Chris says. 

PJ goes back to stacking glasses, just for the breathing room. He can't summon an answer by the time Chris has thrown back the rest of his drink and stood up from his stool. 

"What does that mean?" PJ calls after him, unaware that he was going to until he actually does. "Self-partnered." 

"It means..." and here Chris pauses, more thoughtful than PJ has ever seen him - not that PJ has seen every iteration of Chris, no matter how much he might like to. "I'm alone. But... happy to be." 

"Right." 

Chris throws a hand over his shoulder in a lackadaisical wave, and leaves PJ to the empty glasses and his own undefined disappointment ringing in the silence. 

-

"Do you ever stop?" Chris asks one night, "is that allowed?" 

PJ glances overtop of the stack of drip trays he is carrying and shrugs. He nearly drops them, but rights them at the last minute. 

"Have a drink with me."

"What?"

Chris rolls his eyes. "You. Drink. With me." 

Chris' lips do a funny thing when he talks sometimes. They're exaggerated, his whole face animates. He's doing it now as he talks, head moving side to side with each word, palm patting the seat next to him. 

He follows it with a chuckle, the rounded vowels of his northern accent sounding amused and friendly without trying. 

PJ doesn't know where he's from, he should really ask. 

"Oh," PJ says, dropping the drip trays in the sink at the end of the bar with a clatter. "Yeah I can… just for a minute." 

"I thought you were the manager," Chris says as PJ pours a coke into another glass he'll have to clean before leaving, and then makes his way to the seat Chris indicated. "Didn't someone tell me you were the manager?"

"Uh, yeah. Kind of. I mean… I am. Of the bar, anyway." 

"And do you work every night?" 

Chris has turned around on his chair, leaning back with his elbows on the edge of the bar, facing out into the empty club. The tables look lonely, and a little forlorn, with no one in them. 

PJ sits that way too, ramrod straight rather than leaning back like Chris. He clasps his hands around his drink and moves his thumb back and forth against the rim of the glass. 

"Most nights," PJ replies. 

Chris tips his head back and looks at PJ with eyebrows raised. "Something told me that was the case."

Chris keeps looking at him and PJ knows that it's his turn to say something, anything. He needs to hold up his side of the conversational back and forth, but finding words has never been his strong point. 

"And… um, you? Do you… do this kind of thing every night?" 

"Sure. When places let me work, I work." 

"I can't imagine anyone saying no," PJ says, "you're…"

"I'm what?" Chris asks, smiling widely and just a bit like he's taking the piss, "do you think I'm funny?" 

"Yes," PJ replies, honestly. 

Chris' mouth clicks shut. 

"Do you always do… is it always the same?" 

Chris's tongue pokes into the corner of his mouth. It's pink and wet and pointed and for some reason, PJ's stomach feels like it's in a vice. 

"I switch it up," Chris says. "Come see if you want, I'm at The Bell tomorrow night."

"Tomorrow?" 

Chris shrugs, "if you want."

"I work…" PJ says.

"Sure,' Chris shrugs, "but you're the boss." 

PJ nods dumbly while Chris once again knocks the rest of his drink back and slides off his stool. He's always leaving just as PJ thinks their conversation has started. 

Not that PJ ever knows what to say. He spends every minute with Chris with his words tumbled together in his throat and no idea how to set them free. 

"Thanks for the drink," Chris says. 

"Yeah…" PJ says, but Chris is already out of earshot. "No problem."

-

Before he left he gave Dean two sides of A4 covered in his messy handwriting. 

"Don't mess up, follow the list," PJ had told him, "please don't mess up.' 

Dean had taken the pages and patted him on the shoulder, pushing him out of The Jazz Spot. 

"You'll be late," he'd said, even though neither of them knew what time he needed to be there.

And now PJ is stood in front of The Bell, only two streets over and by far their biggest competition, wondering whether he's completely mad. 

Chris might not have meant it when he asked, or more likely he threw it out there and doesn't care either way. But PJ is here, steps away from the door, and almost resolute in his decision.

Except, what if Dean doesn't change the Stella barrel? It had been nearly finished last night and PJ knows it isn't going to last. He could just text Dean now, or maybe he should just go back and tell him. It isn't far. He could go back and— his phone vibrates in his pocket. 

**Dean:** everything is fine

**PJ:** I know, who said it wasn't? Did you change the Stella?

**Dean:** I know you, you were worrying. Stop.

PJ chews on his bottom lip, still staring at the message. He's only mildly annoyed that Dean knows him as well as he does. 

He grips the phone and goes through all the reasons why he shouldn't respond to press Dean for an answer about the Stella, but he's saved the trouble. 

**Dean:** I changed the stella

There's nothing left for it but to go in. 

He pays the cover charge on the door, and enters to find a smaller venue than The Jazz Spot. It's no more than a pub, really, the stage only barely a lip above the floor. There's a single microphone stand, and a few tables crammed in together. 

The Bell isn't exclusively a comedy club, more of an open mic or variety show kind of deal. They book local talent onto various slots but they vary between bands and singers as well as comedians. 

He thinks there is a spoken word event one night a month as well. Someone had tried to float that idea past Mike once, but Mike said if he saw one bongo being played by someone in a beret he might commit first degree murder, so overall they decided not to bother. It really wasn't worth the hassle. 

PJ orders a pint at the bar and finds a small table towards the back. He has no intention of trying to find Chris, or even to let him know that he's here, it's just that he desperately wants to know what else Chris might talk about. What material does he put into shows when he isn't talking about the things that make PJ feel seen?

He sits through a duo with a guitar and a tambourine, they do inane covers of songs he vaguely recognises from the radio. It's not bad, just boring. He finishes his drink, orders another, sits through more songwriters and one abysmal magician and begins to question what he's doing here. 

He suspects that he might have gotten it wrong. Perhaps Chris isn't performing, maybe he meant a different place, or a different night. Maybe it doesn't matter because he shouldn't be here. 

Thoughts trip over themselves, his subconscious creating reason upon reason for him to get up from this table and slink away, pretend this never happened. 

But then Chris is standing up from a table near the front, where he must have been sitting all along. He's with someone, a guy with a dark beard who slaps him gently on the back as he goes. 

PJ wants to leave. 

Chris turns around, mounts the shallow stage and adjusts the mic. His eyes pan over the crowd and find PJ. For a moment, he pauses, face still. Then, in a glorious instant that settles the turmoil in PJ's brain, he smiles. 

PJ tries not to react. Not just because he doesn't want Chris to see whatever embarrassing expression might flood his face, but also because Chris doesn't quite look like himself. His hair is pushed flat against his forehead, and he's got large wire-frame glasses on, the kind that were popular in the eighties with the extra piece across the bridge. 

"Hello,' Chris says, his accent exaggerated, mouth pulled differently, all bottom teeth and chin. "I'm Darren Styles. You might recognise me from my stand up comedy DVD. Which is now out of distribution… by my mum." 

PJ laughs, mostly incredulous at the weird character Chris has decided to play. He's never seen this, he has no idea where it has come from. 

"She said I was messing with the freeview box and now Loose Women looks weird." Here Chris pauses and laughs at his own joke, a little choked guffaw like nothing PJ has ever heard. And that's just the start.

The whole thing is a rollercoaster. Chris never once breaks character, he pauses too long and stammers, his usually impeccable comedic timing replaced with the awkward delivery of Darren Styles. He gains some laughs, because the character is just exaggerated enough that most of the audience gets that it's a joke, but some of them might not. 

PJ laughs right along with the majority and is enraptured for the entire ten minute set. This routine doesn't make PJ feel things the way his other one does, but he is entertained anyway. 

When it's over, Chris leaves the stage and crosses the pub without going back to his own table. Instead, he comes to sit with PJ sliding his glasses off his nose and batting his hair out of his eyes. 

"Decided you were the boss after all?" 

Chris' voice is back to normal. PJ blinks at him, feeling his cheeks pink up a little. Chris sits in the chair opposite him and PJ sips on the drink he still has in his glass. 

"Something like that."

Chris folds his arms over his chest and levels him with a stare. "Go on then"

"Go on what?"

"Well, what did you think?" 

PJ takes another sip of his drink and shifts in his seat. Chris has lifted a hand to his mouth and is gnawing on the corner of his thumbnail. 

"Different than your usual stuff," PJ says. And then when Chris doesn't respond he asks, "How come you don't do that at The Jazz Spot?" 

"Dunno," Chris mumbles. "It's not so much that I don't want to do Darren at your place, it's more that… well, I don't wanna do the other stuff anywhere else."

"Oh."

PJ wants to ask why. He wants to know what it is about The Jazz Spot that makes Chris feel safe enough to do the personal stuff, and not the character. He wants to know what drove him to do it in the first place, if it's scary, how on earth he worked out what to say. 

He wants to ask a lot of things, but he doesn't.

So instead he just say, "do you want a drink?" 

Chris smiles, his face visibly relaxing. He slips the Darren glasses in the chest pocket of the shirt he's wearing and bats at his hair again, "think it's probably my turn to get you a drink, isn't it?" 

"You know I don't pay for the ones at work, right?" 

"Sure," Chris says, standing up, "but I don't either."

"It's really fine. I mean, you're working at the club when you come in so the least we can do is give you a—" 

"Peej," Chris says, cutting him off. 

PJ's name is already an abbreviation. It's already a kind of nickname so he's used to people calling him by it, but something about an even shorter version of it in Chris' mouth catches him off guard. 

"I'm trying to buy you a drink," he says, "let me?" 

PJ nods, dumbly. 

"Good boy." 

Chris winks, and walks away. PJ is left considering what the hell he's just gotten himself into, and whether he is going to be able to handle it.

-

"I just don't think they're all that bad," Chris says. 

Dean splutters in righteous indignation from his spot in front of the dishwasher. It's through a small open door behind the bar but it's within eyeline to where Chris is perched on his regular stool, but he can't see PJ wiping down the optics. Doesn't stop him shouting to include PJ in the conversation though.

"Are you hearing this?" Dean asks him. 

PJ looks over his shoulder at Chris, and it's not that he knows him any better than Dean does, but perhaps he has studied him more carefully, because he can spot the tell-tale smirk at the corner of his lips, the one that says he's messing with Dean for his own amusement. And it's working. 

"I heard," PJ says. 

"There is a long list of reasons why the prequels leave much to be desired plot-wise," Dean says. "They'd never stand on their own." 

"I dunno," Chris says, still smirking, "I enjoyed them."

"Right," Dean says. He closes the door to the dishwasher forcefully and walks back into the bar area. "You want to watch three movies about a trade dispute and tell me that they don't pale in comparison to the original trilogy?"

Chris shrugs. 

"Don't get me wrong," Dean continues, undeterred by Chris' refusal to actually start a debate, "I will always love Star Wars, and the prequels are still Star Wars but… I just need to know what about the taxation of trade routes, definitely racist alien designs, and sand hating is at all appealing enough to call them good movies?"

Chris shrugs once again and PJ watches colour rise in Dean's face. "Fine," he says, "Monday night, our flat." 

PJ whips his head around at that. "What?" 

"I'm going to make you watch them and show you how bad they are," Dean says, ignoring PJ entirely. 

"Isn't that kind of like punishing yourself?" Chris points out. 

Dean just grins with all his teeth and shrugs, "worth it if you finally get an education. Plus, still Star Wars innit?" 

"Um…" PJ says. 

"You can come to," Chris tells him. He puts his chin in his hand, elbow on the bartop. He's smiling like the whole thing is a big joke and it makes PJ want to go over there and… well, he doesn't know.

"I live there," PJ points out, in lieu of saying anything else.

"And we'll let you stay," Dean says, "we're generous like that." 

"He's going to leave the bar?" Chris says, "again? What is the world coming to?" 

"I leave…" PJ says, "I came to The Bell." 

"We're closed on Mondays," Dean says, and PJ shoots him a murderous look for his betrayal. 

Chris leans back on his stool and laughs, his whole face open and bright. PJ might be the butt of the joke, but Chris lighting up like that makes it worth it for some reason. 

"Right," Chris says, "It's a date, lads."

PJ carries on cleaning down the optics, and hides the way his heart beat is sounding in his ears.

-

Dean is objectively the worst flatmate and friend in the world because he doesn't even pretend he's going to stick around. He stands up from his seat an hour before Chris is due to arrive and leaves PJ in the silence of their flat. 

PJ would have tried arguing but he would be lying if he said he wasn't expecting it. 

When Chris turns up at the designated time, he doesn't look surprised either when PJ stutters that Dean won't be joining them. There is about twenty minutes of awkward small talk while PJ offers Chris tea and makes it with staccato, rattling movements around the small kitchen of his flat. 

Chris leans on a counter and watches him with a faintly amused expression, batting his fringe out of his eyes every so often with splayed fingers. 

"Alright," Chris says at once, hopping up onto the counter and crossing his ankles together, swinging them as he settles in, hands curled around the edge of the surface at each hip. "Time for the questions." 

"Questions?" 

"Yes." Chris nods his head and doesn't look away when PJ hooks a look over his shoulder. He's stirring the tea slowly, much slower that is strictly necessary because it prolongs the time until he needs to turn around and finally come up with something to say. "I have a bank of questions to ask… in situations like this." 

"Find yourself in situations like this often, do you?" PJ has to turn around now, handing the mug to Chris who takes it and doesn't get down off his counter. He's handed Chris a drink before, numerous times, and yet this time it feels entirely different. 

"Not often," Chris smirks. PJ isn't sure what is so funny. 

PJ holds his mug up to his mouth and shakes his head to move his own hair out of his eyes. It's getting long, which means it will be time to get it cut soon, but that is the kind of thing he puts off until he absolutely has to because of the awkward conversation involved. 

"So," Chris says. 

"Do you want to sit somewhere else?" 

Chris shrugs. "I'm good. Are you a morning person or a night owl?" 

PJ laughs, nervous and unexpected, "What?" 

"It's a question." 

PJ considers him, sipping his tea so that it makes a faint slurping sound. "Yes," he says, "it is." 

"So?" 

PJ takes a breath and thinks about his answer for a second before replying. "Night owl," he says, "I kind of have to be… with the bar and all." 

"Yeah, but do you want to be?" 

PJ makes a face that he regrets because it makes it look like he's dismissing Chris' question entirely, rather than just not knowing what to say. "What about you?" 

"Night owl," Chris says without missing a beat, "Definitely." 

"Suppose that helps," PJ says, "With what you do." 

"What is your dream job?" Chris asks, not commenting on whether or not it is handy for him to enjoy staying up late given his chosen career. 

"I—" PJ shakes his head. He doesn't know what to do with this Chris, the one that is asking him questions at a quickfire pace and looking at him intently as if really interested in what the answer will be. "Is that one of the prepared questions? Or one just for me?" 

"Either or," Chris says. 

PJ takes another sip of his tea and Chris does the same. There's a curious smile hanging around Chris' lips, lingering on the rim of his mug, a playful thing that speaks of hidden amusement. PJ just hopes that it isn't at his expense. 

"I don't hate what I'm doing now," PJ says, "I don't know about 'dream job'. I don't think I have one of those." 

"Really?" 

"My job isn't…" PJ puts his mug down onto the counter with a click, and folds his arms over his chest. He feels like he needs a little protection from this conversation somehow, a little barrier between his vulnerability and Chris' insistent questions. Not that he doesn't want to answer, he has nothing against getting to know Chris, even if it means this rather unconventional way of going about it. It's just been so long since anyone asked him questions like this, took a genuine interest. "I like my job, and I'm good at it I think. Even though I know I can be… Anyway. I didn't dream of being a bartender when I was a kid." 

"What did you dream of being?" 

"An explorer," PJ says, "or an astronaut, which I guess is the same thing just… in space." 

"Cute." 

PJ ducks his head, face feeling hot all of a sudden. "What about you?" he asks, instead of dwelling on Chris calling him cute, "did you always dream of being a comedian?" 

"Pretty much," Chris nods, "or an actor. Unlike you, I don't think I'm very good at my job though." 

"You are," PJ tells him, unable to really make eye contact as he does, looking over his shoulder in lieu of trying. 

"Cheers." 

"Do you have more questions?" PJ asks him. 

"I have loads," Chris tells him. 

PJ shakes his head and picks up his mug again. "COme on," PJ tells Chris, walking out of the kitchen. 

"Where are we going?" 

"Living room," PJ says, "I'm going to need a comfy seat if you're going to ask me invasive questions." 

"Not invasive," Chris says, following him. "I don't have to—" 

"No," PJ says, stopping on the threshold of the living room. Chris has taken his shoes off and he's wearing light blue socks with dark blue on the toes. His hair is always in his eyes, but his too-long limbs always seem to be where he puts them rather than where he left them. He's a bit of a walking contradiction and he might well be a bit too much for PJ to handle, but PJ doesn't mind. "You can ask me questions." 

"Good," Chris nods, gesturing with his mug through the open door, "lead the way then."

-

That night, and Chris' endless questions, are the dam that finally breaks. Chris no longer seems hesitant on the other side of the bar, he is there every night he has a slot on the roster and while it's been that way for a while, it feels like everything has changed. 

Chris does his show, he fills PJ's chest and throat with the way that it always feels and then he arrives through the stage door and sits on the same stool he always does. Even while the bar is still full, he snatches conversation from PJ between customers, and laughs easily at the jokes PJ makes, mouth wide and eyes crinkled. 

Most nights it's just that. He snatches the edge of PJ's sleeve across the bar, and PJ gasps air into his lungs, silent and hidden, and pretends that the fleeting touch of Chris's fingers to the side of his wrist doesn't make his heart beat just a bit faster. 

PJ doesn't say everything he wants to in these moments, because to do so would mean too many words tripping over themselves, tumbling and mixed up. 

Other nights, Chris is quieter. He still takes the end stool on the corner of PJ's bar and stares into the bottom of a whiskey glass. Only ever one, because it isn't like he's trying to drown anything out, but he's clearly affected. 

On those nights, his laughter doesn't come as easy, but his questions do. 

"Do you think I should change my act?" Chris asks. 

"I…" PJ tries, everytime. He wants to tell Chris that no, he shouldn't change a single word because there are things inside PJ's head that Chris has put out into the world and every time he does it, it makes PJ feel just a little bit more seen. 

PJ can't find the words to express that, so he just tells Chris that he's doing a good job and he points out the places that everyone laughs and then he hands Chris his single whiskey and avoids the subject. 

It's not just the bar. PJ will sometimes find Chris waiting for him when he's leaving, and they take to walking through the early hours of the day, watching the sky turn a muted pink-grey around the edges before finally giving in. 

"You don't say much," Chris tells him sometimes, "but what you do say can be so weird."

PJ snaps his mouth shut, teeth clinking. 

"No," Chris says, his palm on PJ's arm is warm and his laughter even warmer, "I like it." 

They pause at the underground. PJ needs to take one platform, and Chris the other, and sometimes PJ pictures following Chris onto the one he needs, staying by his side for a bit longer. He kids himself that Chris lingers too, perhaps with some of the same thoughts running through his head, but eventually they say goodnight, laugh that it should be good morning, and part ways. 

Dean doesn't ask why he keeps getting in so late, and PJ doesn't offer an explanation. 

It isn't just the lingering. Chris leaves lots of spaces for PJ to fill with his misplaced hopes, and PJ's mind runs wild with the fleeting thought that maybe Chris feels some of the things he does. 

But PJ doesn't know how to ask, the words won't come, and spaces only last for so long. Chris's hand glancing off his arm, sitting closer that normal, telling PJ 'I like it', over and over, but Chris always moves on before PJ can string the thoughts together and gather enough bravery to find out if maybe Chris is leaving those spaces on purpose. 

How long before there aren't any spaces left and PJ hasn't found a way to fill them? 

PJ worries that time will run out, that he'll never be able to, but soon enough it doesn't matter. Soon enough, everything changes, and the spaces get so wide that PJ realises they are no longer gaps between things as they once were, but the absence of things altogether.

\- 

Chris has this moment in his act where he talks about how some people don't believe you're bisexual unless your attraction to and interactions with all genders is equal. It always makes PJ laugh, of course, but it stirs something up inside and quiets the voice that tells him he is any less than what he is because he's never had anything serious with a man. 

He's still allowed to be who he is, PJ thinks, he can still use the the term bisexual, hold it close in his heart even if he doesn't say it out loud often, regardless of what his dating history is.

"I love the idea that there's a certain quota you have to meet every month," Chris says, and here he pauses for the laughter than never fails to come, "or they take your membership away." 

He does the bit in his act where the committee tells him he needs to 'touch one more penis before they can renew his license' and PJ is grinning to himself like he always is, but then Chris doesn't continue where he's supposed to and PJ spins around where he's filling a glass at the vodka optic, just in time to see a drunk man at a table on the second row get to his feet, chair clattering to the floor behind him. 

"You can suck this you big—" His hand is on his crotch, gesturing ludely, and he's saying the worst thing PJ can imagine, ending his sentence with the worst word possible, and all PJ can do is watch the colour drain from Chris' face. 

"I'd rather not," Chris says, his accent gone a bit posher than usual, "I think I'd rather have my license revoked." 

The room offers a quiet titter at the drunk guys expense, and Chris is able to move on with his act, but nothing feels right to PJ. He sounds… off.

It doesn't matter than the doorman has already reached the guy and had a clamped hand on his shoulder, escorting him out. It doesn't matter that everyone else in the room is obviously appalled, that no one agrees with the sentiment of one drunken bigot, because Chris' voice doesn't sound the way it usually does, and PJ can't stand the flatness of it, the way the joyous feeling in his chest is painfully absent. 

After Chris' set, PJ taps Dean on the shoulder and before he has a chance to ask Dean nods and says, "I've got the bar. Go see him." 

PJ smiles in thanks, and does just that. 

There isn't really a dressing room, per say, just a room with some desks and mirrors where all the talent gathers before the show. Mostly they just use it as a place to hang their things because they spend most of the time next to the stage listening to the other acts on the circuit, supporting each other or else watching to see how hot the crowd is. No doubt whoever came on after Chris had already taken note of what happened. 

When PJ walks in, Chris is sitting at the desk nearest, his head in his hands, as though he'd slumped down on the first chair he reaches. He looks up abruptly when he hears PJ's footsteps, shoulder tense, but they drop again ever so slightly when he sees that it is only PJ. 

"I came to…" PJ trails off. He doesn't really know what he came to do because he isn't entirely sure that Chris will want him here. He only knows that he couldn't stand that sound in Chris' voice and there was no way he could have stayed on the bar without finding out if it was still there. 

"Go away," Chris says. It is still there. 

"He was just a dickhead," PJ says, stepping into the room and pushing the door closed behind him. Not all the way clicked into place, but enough so that it isn't open to the hallway beyond. "He doesn't know what he was talking about." 

Chris shakes his head. He looks drawn, he isn't wearing his jacket anymore, he;s just in his shirt, his sleeves rolled up to the elbows. The mirror in front of him reflects back the same hollowed-out expression so that PJ has to see it twice. He hates it. 

"I knew it," Chris says, voice quiet but raw and balled up. "I knew I couldn't… I should just stop doing this. I can't keep…" 

He sighs, getting up from the desk in a way that makes PJ take another step forward, wanting to be close to him even though he has no idea what he will do when he gets there. 

"Don't stop," he says, "You don't have to let one guy stop you from—" 

PJ reaches the desk where Chris had been sat, at the same time that Chris pushes past him, striding over to the coat hook where his jacket is hanging. PJ is in the room, and Chris is on his way out of it.

"You don't know what it's like to do that," Chris says, face pink in the high points. He's found his voice now, but it's angry and jagged and pouring out of him. Defensive and angry. "To keep doing it over and over, and every time you're scared that this is the point that you— that you fail. That you realise what you're doing is wrong." 

"It isn't..." PJ fades off. He searches and searches for the words to tell Chris everything that his act makes him feel, how it seems to him that Chris has cracked his chest and scooped out his innermost thoughts, spread them across his entire routine so that PJ can finally see something funny in it. Something like hope.

But he doesn't say that.

Instead, he just lets the words fade away, turn to silence in his mouth, lost in the shrug of his shoulders, eyes darting away. 

"I need to go," Chris says. 

"Chris..." PJ reaches out a hand, and his fingertips skim the soft fold of Chris' sleeve, pushed up in the crook of his elbow. PJ isn't sure when he got so close. Chris' forearms are bare and pale, and PJ wants to take one in each hand and pull him closer until the pained look on Chris' face disappears. 

"It's best that I'm alone," Chris says. "I... I'm gunna go." 

He puts his jacket back on, and his coat on top of that and all the while PJ's thoughts run wild with the things he should say to the soundtrack of rustling material and the harsh huff of Chris' breathing.

None of it will help. Nothing he says now will take back the things that person said, nothing PJ could possibly offer would soothe him, because who is PJ to convince him to keep doing something, if Chris doesn't want to do it?

Chris wants to be alone and PJ has never been the kind of person to press an issue when someone has clearly stated what they want. Chris leaves the room, and PJ knocks his knuckles against the desk, mirror rattling.

The spaces are gone. Chris is gone. And PJ doesn't know what to do with that.

\- 

PJ hopes that Chris will be back the next week, but he isn't. In fact, Chris doesn't turn up for the next two slots he had booked and PJ doesn't really know what to do about it. 

"Call him," is Dean's solution, but PJ knows he can't. 

"He wants to be alone," PJ says. 

"He said it was better that he was alone," Dean corrects him, having heard the story of PJ and Chris' last conversation nearly a dozen times since it happened. 

"What's the difference?" 

Dean sighs. "You know, I know that technically you're my boss and everything, but we've been friends for a long time so I feel like I can tell you this without you firing me; you're a complete idiot." 

"What?" 

"You really need to fight harder for things." 

"I don't understand." 

"You wait, Peej. You wait until things are perfect, when they're never going to be. You worry about the bar and you won't take time off because you're afraid that things won't be perfect but... life isn't like that. Things don't have to be perfect. They're messy, especially with stuff like this. It's never going to be the best time to tell him that you've got it bad." 

"I didn't say that--"

"No you didn't. Because you don't say things, do you?"

"I try," PJ insists, "I want to be able to-- It's difficult... sometimes." 

"Yeah," Dean says, "It is. It's difficult to put yourself out there, like it must be difficult for Chris to put himself out there every night on that stage. Just because he's doing it, doesn't make it easy, you know?"

"He could have said something to me. All he said was he was happy alone, right from the beginning. Don't I have to respect that?" 

"Sure you do," Dean says, "If it's true. But is he really happy, or does he just not know that there's an alternative?" 

PJ thinks back to what Chris said. He thinks back to all the times they hung out, all the times Chris gave him an opening that PJ was just too afraid to take. 

It isn't perfect, it's a mess, frankly, but maybe that's okay. 

"What if I'm wrong?" PJ says. His voice is small, it always is. "What if I say the wrong thing? What if he doesn't like me back? What if—" 

Dean puts a hand on his arm and PJ realises that he's gesticulating wildly. His hands are flailing, punctuating every word with some kind of disjointed movement, and Dean's hand brings him to a stop. 

"You might be wrong," Dean says, "you might fuck it up completely, but at least you'll have tried. At least you'll have... taken a risk. You have to, when things are worth it." 

PJ takes a deep breath, squeezes his eyes shut just for a second, to block out the _what if what if what if_ still running in his head. 

"Is it worth it?" Dean asks. 

"Yeah..." PJ says, on the breath that had been trapped in his ribcage, "I think so."

\- 

The Bell is the same as it was last time. The cover charge is the same and the small room with the crammed in tables is just as busy. Right at the front, Chris is once again in the pale blue shirt of his Darren Styles act, glasses perched on his nose, sitting with the same man as last time. 

PJ doesn't let the nervous twitch in his feet stop him, his fear sits heavy in his stomach and tries to drag him back but he marches across the room to stand next to their table. He feels too tall and intrusive, aware of all his limbs and where they are in relation to where Chris is sitting at the table.

The man sitting with him looks up first. 

"Hello," the guy says, "Who are you?" 

"Uh, I'm… PJ."

Chris turns around, quickly. He did have Darren's expression on his face before, but now it's all him, slightly shocked and startled. 

"Hello PJ, I'm Sammy, this is Chris." 

"Yeah, I know." 

"What are you doing here, PJ?" Chris says.

"I came to see you." 

"Why?"

"Are you going to introduce me?" Sammy says, interjecting.

Chris' shoulders heave with a breath and he rolls his eyes. 

"Sammy, this is PJ, he's the bar manager at The Jazz Spot. PJ, this is Sammy, he's my flatmate, and the most irritating person alive." 

"Hi," PJ says, then turns to Chris, "Can we talk?"

"Uh, sure," Chris says.

PJ moves away from the table, away from the assessing eyes of Sammy who look baffled beyond belief, and beckons Chris to follow him. 

"Can you just… come with me?" 

Chris looks puzzled, but he slides the glasses off his face and gets up from the seat. PJ leads them out of the bar, out onto the cold street. Neither of them have a coat, both of them shiver in the freezing, dark, night air. The street is drenched in dark blue-grey, their breaths fog in the space between them. There are three people walking on up ahead, and their laughter echoes in the sky, drowned out by a bus that drives past, but other than that, they are alone. 

"I know I keep saying the wrong thing," PJ says, starting in the middle because the middle is where everything that needs to be said is, and if he doesn't start there, he'll never get to it. "I know that I'm bad at all of this but I just..."

"You just what?" 

PJ stares. Chris' eyes are bright and focused, and they're fixed on PJ, not on anything else. This is the risk, PJ realises, this is the moment where he needs to say the wrong thing if that's what he's going to do, because the right thing is beyond him, maybe, and the perfect thing doesn't exist. 

PJ takes a breath and decides to let it be wrong.

"Don't do this act," PJ says, hands indicating to the glasses in Chris' breast pocket, "you're funny, you are, and this act is good but it isn't... it doesn't make me feel the way your other one does."

Chris' lips part, his tongue darting out to wet the bottom one, and PJ tries not to be distracted, he has things to say and for once he's going to say them. 

"The first time I saw you stand on a stage and tell the entire room who you are, I couldn't believe it. I felt like something about me had been exposed too, and that for the first time in my life I didn't care. I liked it. I liked that I could look up there every week and for ten minutes, there was someone in the room that understood me, that got what it was like to feel the way I did. I'd never had that before."

Chris takes his hands out of his pockets, even though it is cold and the frigid air must be biting at his skin. The air around them picks up and runs through the strands of Chris' hair, lifting them and depositing them back in a soft curve over his forehead.

"You gave that to me," PJ says, "and probably to loads of other people, because I don't think I'm alone in feeling what I felt. But I do hope that I'm the only one that feels… well…" 

_That feels the way I do about you. That is completely mad for you. That's in lo—_

"You really are bad at this, aren't you?" Chris says. 

He's got that smirk on his face. The one that tugs at the corners of his mouth and dances in the colour of his eyes, the one that tells PJ he's taking the piss. All of a sudden PJ deflates, bravery sapped from him because maybe he doesn't need it anymore. 

"Yes," PJ says, "I'm really, really bad." 

Chris steps forward, into his space. PJ doesn't even look up to see who might be watching, because he doesn't care. This is him, standing on a cold street and saying something to whoever might be listening. 

"I really love your act," PJ says. 

"I don't really want to be alone," Chris says. 

PJ swallows, nods, takes a breath. Tiny things, little gestures, but it settles something. "Right," he says. "Right." 

He steps even further forward. Chris took a step, and now PJ has. But PJ is going to do one more, because even though there is a nagging voice in the back of his head that tells him it could be the wrong thing, it doesn't feel like it is. It feels like it could be really, really right. 

PJ closes the distance, and kisses him.

-

A comic takes the stage in a blue suit with a t-shirt underneath. He's easy, relaxed, he winks at PJ over his mic stand and announces to the room that he's bisexual. PJ feels a surge of something warm and happy in his chest like he always does. 

Later, Chris tells the room that PJ is too, and they turn to look. PJ flushes under the attention, but it doesn't feel like judgment. At that moment, even though it isn't PJ saying it, it feels like it is. Or like it could be. It's possible.

Maybe PJ doesn't say enough, and Chris will always worry that he says too much, but PJ figures that as long as the things they do say feel like this, then everything will be okay.


End file.
